5. Typhus Fever on the Left Bank of the Rhine; France and Switzerland

The continued retreat of the French army passed from Mayence through Metz to Paris, and the route of the retreat was marked by patients left behind. In this way the epidemic of typhus fever was quickly transplanted to the north-eastern part of France. Alsace-Lorraine, the Palatinate, Champagne, and Burgundy were all attacked in succession. The epidemic raged from Kreuznach to Strassburg; the dispersion of the retreating army caused even the smallest villages to suffer, so that the pestilence appeared in Worms, Frankenthal, Spires, Oppenheim, Neustadt-on-the-Hardt, Dürkheim, Landau, Alzey, Trabach, Zweibrücken, Weissenburg, Hagenau, Zabern, and in other places. Mörs (near Frankenthal) was almost completely wiped out.[[170]] The following places in France are mentioned as having been attacked by the pestilence: Saint-Avold, Courcelles-Chaussy, Mars-la-Tour, Sierck, Cattenom, Pont-à-Mousson, Toul, Nancy, Étain, Verdun, Bar, Longwy, and Sedan. Thouvenel describes the epidemic of typhus fever in Pont-à-Mousson, which broke out in December 1813, when transports of sick soldiers arrived there, and spread to all the surrounding towns and villages; it increased in severity until the middle of March, and by June had almost disappeared. He describes in emotional language the endless succession of wagons that arrived every day:[[171]]

Who of us will not remember as long as he lives those harrowing scenes, which one cannot describe without shuddering? Who will ever forget those hundreds of wagons filled with unhappy wounded men who had had no medical care since leaving Leipzig; and packed in with them were sick men suffering from dysentery, typhus fever, &c., almost all of them dying of inanition, weakness, and filth, as well as of disease. Those unfortunate men piteously begged only for a place in a hospital already filled with dying men, only to receive in reply a forced refusal. And so they were under the cruel necessity of going further to die, with the result that they infected all the towns and villages along their route, wherever they were granted a generous hospitality.

Strassburg, comparatively speaking, suffered but little. As early as December 1, the prefect of Strassburg had issued orders that a special building should be set aside in every town for the reception of sick soldiers that arrived there, and that they should under no circumstances be housed in the homes of citizens. In October and November convalescents had been quartered in the residences of citizens, who had subsequently been infected. In November the number of typhus-fever patients, which averaged ten or fifteen per month, increased to thirty-six, and in December to 100. In accordance with the above-mentioned decree all newly-arrived soldiers were examined by a Board of Health; the sick were sent to the hospital, and the healthy were quartered with citizens. ‘Notwithstanding this,’ says Reisseisen,[[172]] ‘the healthy ones infected a large number of inhabitants through their old woollen overcoats, which were thoroughly saturated with the miasma of the hospitals. The clothes that were sold privately were particularly dangerous, so that in the latter part of December strict orders were issued to keep watch for the old clothes and burn them. In the first part of January, when the rather lax siege began, typhus fever spread irresistibly throughout the city; in that month the pestilence reached its climax with 175 deaths. On January 22 the prefects ordered general fumigations in all public buildings, and recommended that the citizens should also fumigate their homes. The result was very successful; in February 112 people died, in March 75, and in April 27, and then typhus fever disappeared. No foreign troops marched through the stronghold, and although all the French prisoners of war passed through the city, no more citizens were infected by them, for the reason that they were quartered in the fortifications.

The devastation caused by the pestilence in Metz was no less than frightful. Maréchal and Didion[[173]] give us a picture of this severe epidemic. On November 19, 1813, some 5,000 sick soldiers were assigned to that city; it was necessary to see that they were sheltered, and at the same time measures were adopted to prevent the disease from spreading. According to the report of the astute Mayor of Metz, Baron Marchant, the 5,000 soldiers, all of them suffering from an infectious disease, arrived, and sixty of them died every day. All the physicians in Metz contracted the disease, and several of them died. It was impossible to procure sick-attendants, since those who had performed this service had all contracted the disease, conveyed it home, and infected their families. Sick soldiers who were quartered privately, and particularly convalescents, also helped to spread the disease throughout the city; more than 150 houses were infected. In the latter part of December the number of patients greatly increased. On January 1, 1814, after Blücher had crossed the Rhine, the Germans marched against Metz, and then an enormous crowd of people from the surrounding country fled to that city for protection. This caused typhus fever to spread far and wide throughout the city. Furthermore, sick and exhausted soldiers were constantly being sent to Metz, and it is estimated that some 30,000 of them arrived there. The worst month was February, and 7,752 soldiers, all told, died in six months:

November463
December1,602
January1,360
February2,365
March1,622
April340

1,294 civilians also died, the largest number (371) likewise in February. In the entire Department of Moselle, which at that time had some 400,000 inhabitants, no less than 10,329 people succumbed to this epidemic, and this number does not include the soldiers.

Regarding the wide dissemination of typhus fever in the Departments east and south of Paris, which formed the scene of the war in the first part of the year 1814 (the Departments of Haute-Marne, Côte-d’Or, Aube, Yonne, Marne, Seine-et-Marne), no further information is available. Troyes, Besançon, Dijon, Avallon, and Auxerre are mentioned as places that were attacked by the pestilence.

In Paris, cases of typhus fever occurred in February, when the war moved closer to that city. The sick and wounded soldiers were consequently obliged to go to the hospitals in Paris; but since these were neither large nor numerous enough to accommodate so many patients, it became necessary to open several provisional hospitals in appropriate buildings. At first all the typhus-fever patients were taken to the Hôpital de la Pitié, but it soon became necessary to change this policy, since the disease had spread throughout all the wards of that building. In the latter part of February the first cases of typhus fever appeared in the city, in consequence of the return of many soldiers to their own families. In March more and more people contracted the disease, which toward the end of the month was raging furiously, though more in the hospitals than in the city. In the Hospice de la Salpêtrière, which had been converted into a military hospital and began to be used on February 9, 1814, a small number of persons contracted typhus fever in the latter part of March, and in the months of April and May the disease spread; after that, however, it began to abate. A great many nurses and attendants were taken sick.[[174]] In April a large number of people in the city were lying sick with typhus fever. In one boarding-school, from which several persons visited the hospitals and brought typhus fever home with them, thirty people contracted the disease and four succumbed to it. In May cases of typhus fever became more rare, and in August no more people contracted the disease. The mortality in Paris in the year 1814 was very high; whereas in the years 1812 and 1813 the number of deaths had been 20,133 and 18,676 respectively, in the year 1814 no less than 27,778 people died, which number includes 2,559 soldiers that died in the hospitals. In the year 1815 the number of deaths decreased again to 19,992. How large the number of deaths due to typhus fever was, it is impossible to state with certainty, since in the case of only a small number of the persons who actually died of typhus fever was that disease recorded as the cause of death. The rubric ‘fièvres putrides et adynamiques’ increased in the year 1813 from 1,337 deaths to 2,860 deaths, and the rubric ‘fièvres malignes ou ataxiques’ from 804 to 1,376.[[175]]

Owing to the overcrowded condition of the hospitals in Paris, soldiers were conveyed upon a number of boats on the Seine to Rouen. Since sick and wounded men were thus transported together, typhus fever was conveyed to Rouen, where it carried away large numbers of persons employed in the hospitals. In the same way, sick and wounded were transported to points on the Loire, causing typhus fever to spread to Tours, where 860 soldiers succumbed to it.[[176]]

The proximity of the scene of the war in January and February 1813 caused typhus fever to break out in the Swiss Cantons lying close to the French border; for example, in the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Land, Neuenburg, Solothurn, and Waadt. The number of deaths in these cantons was:[[177]]

Year.Basel-Stadt.Basel-Land.Neuenburg.Solothurn.Waadt.
18124428671,0411,3493,705
18134257481,0141,0723,186
18147211,6791,3351,8443,475
18154798121,2201,2403,267
18163557101,234 3,720

According to A. Burckhardt,[[178]] lazaret-fever broke out in Basel with extraordinary fury when the Allies passed through that city; it raged particularly among the foreign soldiers, but also attacked the attendants in the hospitals and the civil inhabitants. The number of deaths caused by it is unknown.

6. Typhus Fever in Austria in the Years 1813–14.[[179]]

The country in Austria which was most exposed to the ravages of the epidemic of typhus fever was Bohemia, along whose borders the war was for a long time carried on. As early as February 1813, ‘nerve-fever’, accompanied by petechiae, was borne by Bavarian and Prussian troops into the district of Königgrätz, but thanks to energetic and strict measures of precaution, it did not become very widespread. The principal outbreak of the epidemic in Bohemia took place in the autumn of the year 1813. The number of typhus-fever patients taken into the Prague hospital in September 1813 was 39, in October 77, in November 196, and in December 287.[[180]] The region along the Saxon border suffered the most: e.g. the districts of Leitmeritz, Saaz, Rakonitz, and Elbogen. In the Leitmeritz district typhus appeared in August, and became more severe in September and October; the places along the military road leading from Dresden to Prague were particularly hard hit. The epidemic lasted until April. In the near-by Kaurzim district sick and wounded soldiers of all nations arrived, after the battles of Pirna, Dresden, and Kulm, causing a virulent epidemic to break out everywhere; in many places all the inhabitants contracted it. In the latter part of the year, when the pestilence seemed to have abated a little, it broke out anew when the French garrison was being taken from Dresden to its place of detention; in fourteen days 2,422 persons in sixty places contracted the disease, which disappeared in May. Typhus fever had spread over 103 localities, all told, in that region, and of 8,066 people who contracted it, 751 succumbed. In the Saaz district typhus broke out in the last part of October 1813, and carried away large numbers of people; it raged all along the military road in the vicinity of the scene of the war. The highest mortality was in the month of December, and in May the pestilence disappeared. In the Rakonitz district entire communities lay sick in the first part of the year, but in April no new cases of the disease occurred. In the Elbogen district typhus fever broke out in September 1813 in the city of Eger, in consequence of the arrival of French prisoners and fugitives; the epidemic soon spread over the entire district, and lasted until March 1814.

The rest of Bohemia suffered less severely from typhus fever in the winter of 1813–14. In the Beraun district, lying to the south-west of Prague, it began in October 1813, when the homes of the citizens became crowded with convalescing soldiers; the epidemic came to an end in March 1814. The number of people who contracted the disease was 3,807, while the number who succumbed was 296. The adjacent districts of Pilsen and Kattau were likewise attacked; in the Pilsen district typhus fever broke out in October 1813, in consequence of the arrival of French prisoners; a number of places were infected by them, so that in November and December it developed into an epidemic, which lasted until April. Of 1,185 people who contracted the disease, 237 died. In the Kattau district 645 contracted the disease and 132 succumbed.

In the eastern part of the country the districts of Tabor and Czaslau were severely attacked. ‘In the Tabor district’, we read in the above-mentioned report,[[181]] ‘there appeared in the month of August at Neuhaus, where a field-hospital had been erected, several biliary-mucous nerve-fevers, which broke out in numerous places along the road to Prague, soon spread to the Tabor district, and became epidemic. They quickly revealed their presence in all places where sick soldiers passed the night, or where the natives took part in the transportation of sick soldiers.’ The climax of the epidemic was in January, and in the middle of May it disappeared; of 4,267 people who contracted the disease, 448 succumbed. In the Czaslau district, adjacent to the Tabor district on the north, the disease was disseminated in November 1813 by transports of prisoners and troops, by the quartering of convalescents in the homes of peasants, and by peasants who helped to transport sick soldiers. On December 16, 1813, no less than 4,313 civilians in thirteen places were suffering from typhus fever. The highest mortality prevailed in the vicinity of the hospitals; the epidemic disappeared with the arrival of spring.

Typhus fever was also conveyed into various parts of Moravia,[[182]] partly by Austrian troops, and partly by French prisoners; in the districts of Brünn, Iglau, Olmütz, and Teschen it broke out in numerous places. In twelve communities in these districts, having a combined population of 28,267, some 2,126 people contracted the disease between December 1813 and the summer of 1814, and 207 persons succumbed. In March the epidemic disappeared almost everywhere. According to the figures compiled by J. Hain,[[183]] the number of deaths in Moravia and Austrian-Silesia together was:

July (1813)3,818
August3,893
September3,888
October4,059
November4,457
December5,202
January (1814)8,280
February7,249
March7,756
April5,464
May5,541
June4,147

In Lower Austria typhus fever also broke out, particularly in Vienna; the number of deaths there was:

Due to typhus fever.All deaths.
181378412,971
18141,52915,309

In the rest of the country few diseases appeared, despite the fact that troops kept marching back and forth.

Typhus fever was conveyed by marching troops to Styria also; the source of the pestilence was the seven military hospitals in Graz. We read in the report:[[184]] ‘The pestilence, proceeding principally from the seven military hospitals lying within the city limits as from a focus, was spread abroad by convalescents, attendants, physicians, &c. The mortality in these hospitals was extremely high; the buildings set aside for the purpose could scarcely accommodate the number of sick. Everything was topsy-turvy; the corps of field-doctors on hand was not nearly large enough to take even the most necessary care of the large number of patients.’ The region around Graz, Marburg, and Bruck was most severely attacked by the disease, which also spread to Carinthia and broke out in Klagenfurt and vicinity.